The evolution of the American office

Make Me Smart

It’s been about four years since the great remote work experiment took off for many employees who work computer-bound jobs. After plenty of back and forth between return-to-office mandates and work-from-home advocates, neither side really won. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the share of Americans doing some or all of their work from home has leveled off to about 35%. On the show today, The New York Times’ Emma Goldberg explains who’s working from home these days and how it’s impacting both employees and their bosses. Plus, the commercial real estate question looms large over the remote work debate.

Then, we’ll get into why the Joe Biden administration’s new protections for workers in extreme heat could be threatened by recent Supreme Court rulings and a potential second Trump presidency. And, the CEO of GS1, the company administering retail barcodes, didn’t see the QR code takeover coming.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “Work From Home Data Shows Who’s Fully Remote, Hybrid and in Person” from The New York Times
• “Research: How Remote Work Impacts Women at Different Stages of Their Careers” from Harvard Business Review
• “More Americans now prefer hybrid over fully remote work, survey finds” from Axios
• “Remote Workers Are Losing Out on Promotions, New Data Shows” from The Wall Street Journal
• “Dell said return to the office or else—nearly half of workers chose “or else'” from Ars Technica
• “Tesla delivered fewer vehicles to customers for the second quarter in a row” from The Verge
• “Biden to announce heat rules as climate-related deaths rise” from Politico
• “Fact check: Republicans, not Democrats, eliminated the Senate filibuster on Supreme Court nominees” from USA Today

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